Hello and welcome to another installment of five things, where I painstakingly come up with a handful of things that have lately made me, for lack of a better word, happy to be alive.1 Etcetera.
1.
A few days ago I wrote about how important it is for me to sit in a dark movie theater several times a week, but can I say that it is almost as crucial for me to sit outdoors listening to live music about once a month? The intersection of Sitting and Art, clearly, is huge at Hmm HQ. This past weekend, I attended this market Barcelona holds the first weekend of every month. I hadn’t been since the summer, and Sunday just so happened to be a nearly perfect day, the kind with blue skies and wispy clouds and a gradually growing chill, the kind of day that welcomes a light jacket and a cozy crossing of the arms once the sun starts going down.
Anyway, there’s live music at this event, and November’s theme was urban flamenco.
This will sound like something I’m making up to sound more interesting, but: I’ve loved flamenco for a long time. Back in Miami, I think during our last year of college, a friend and I discovered a Spanish restaurant where, along with sangria and tortilla and pan con tomate, we consumed flamenco performances that left us giddy and dizzy. (Finding friends with whom to exchange Spotify links ad nauseam is an unmissable step in growing up, btw.) Anyway, I felt a similar thrill listening to the duo performing on Sunday, Carmen y María, two women whose voices harmonized so beautifully and so seamlessly I couldn’t stop smiling like an absolute idiot for the duration of their set. Two songs I’ve had on repeat: “Esta Primavera” and “NO TE TOCA.” If you enjoyed Rosalía’s debut album (and who didn’t?), I think you should give these a listen.2
2.
Over the summer, following brunch at one of Manhattan’s somewhat alarmingly ubiquitous Australian cafes, a few friends and I popped into McNally Jackson, in part because as soon as we left the Aussies, mostly because I felt insane after spending 90 minutes surrounded by $7 flat whites and $12 slices of banana bread and folks taking out their phones to ask ChatGPT a question about the West Village, I said, I was thinking of going to McNally Jackson if anyone wants to come.
While at McNally, I think I got Annie Ernaux’s A Simple Passion and Danzy Senna’s Colored Television, both of which I loved and wrote about in my latest reading recap. After I paid, though, I did that thing when you don’t really leave a place after exchanging goods for payment, and in my little post-Apple Pay strolling I found a weekly planner from Laconic that immmmediately called out to me. It’s thin and well laid out and the exact shade of greige that they buy in bulk for new buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods. Anyway, my best friend generously bought the $6 planner for me, and it’s honestly one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.3
I love a planner’s promise of productivity. I love getting my little pens out of my bag and writing out what friends I’m seeing and which restaurants I’m going to and the time I’m going to the movies and maybe even, if I must, a to-do list. If I must. And often I must. I can no longer do that thing I used to do as a teenager and even a twenty-something, where if I had something to do I just did it, almost thoughtlessly. Now I have to write it down and stare at it over the course of a whole week to terrify myself into Just Doing It.
3.
I’ll probably write about this at greater length in the ~near future, but early in October I bought a massive collection of Roberto Bolaño’s essays and lectures and have been going through it since then.4 Every day after my morning pages, I pour myself a second cup of coffee and, pen in hand, read four or five essays. I’ve been doing this for about a month, mind you, and I’m only about halfway through the essays. If you’ll permit me a teensy bit of sentimentality, this has become a treasured part of my morning routine. I’m not ascribing any sort of sanctity to his writing, but the half hour or so I spend reading Bolaño’s essays every morning makes me feel the same way I imagine Believers™ feel poring over the pages of religious texts. The activity, maybe, more than the text, contains a certain sacredness.
The thing is this is the first time I read Bolaño, the Chilean writer who died in 2003 at only 50 years old. I probably should’ve read some of his fiction first; it’s what he’s most known for, after all, as the Internet and my most literary friends tell me. His posthumously published novel 2666 is frequently spotted on Best of … lists, and I see it proudly displayed on the shelves of most bookstores I visit—the full cover, too, not just its humble spine.
But I’ll get to his fiction eventually.
For now, the truth is I’ve lacked inspiration lately, which is such bullshit when you think about it, because writing is a creative endeavor, sure, but it is also a job, an occupation, a profession, and the idea of needing to be inspired to do the job that earns you a living is a little embarrassing. Like, Clara, get a grip. But. But, but, but … Embarrassing as it might be, it’s also the reality, and consuming a regular and steady diet of Good (see also: Great) Essays has revived me. Because sometimes you (I) need a reminder that actually, you (I) can write about anything. Like, really, anything. It’s liberating, realizing that with enough effort and interest—and a not-insignificant commitment to editing—nearly any subject is fair game. Sometimes, in fact, the more niche the better: do you know how many fascinating essays about unknown-to-me people and places I’ve read in the last month? So many.
4.
My favorite part of five things is the opportunity to look back on all the newsletters and essays I’ve read and loved over the last few weeks. Here are just a few of them:
on the hidden beauty of uncertainty with “Anti-knowledge might just be the thing that might set us free;” on sentimentality and aging with “Born at the right time;” on the disappointment of institutional sell-outs with “The tragic book tour of Karine Jean-Pierre;” this is slightly self-absorbed of me, but I chatted with for her new “coffee with …” series and had a lovely time; on artificial intelligence and communication’s shifting landscape (although this is simplifying Celine’s well-researched and stunning piece!) with “how to speak to a computer;” and on making art and the decadence (derogatory) of self-promotion with “direct address.”5.
Bucatini. Have we discussed bucatini before? I feel like we must have. It seems impossible that we haven’t. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have a lot of thoughts about pasta, all positive (unless we’re talking penne, a shape that is a crime against God and beauty), and there are few things I appreciate more than a proper bowl of bucatini.5 Is it better than spaghetti? Maybe. Maybe! It depends on the day, but bucs feel cozier, somehow. More substantial. Perfect for the colder months, when I want to drown myself in pasta.
(If you haven’t read Rachel Handler’s renowned, groundbreaking piece on the Great Bucatini Shortage of 2020, you are doing yourself a disservice. Here’s a snippet:
Bucatini is spaghetti but thicker and with a hole in it, meaning it absorbs 200 percent more sauce than its thinner, hole-free brethren, due to math.
Exactly. Even if you have read it, actually, you should give it another spin. I promise “What the Hole is Going On?” is worth it.)
Lamentably, I’ve had trouble finding bucatini in this city, which means that for over a year I’ve gone without them. Horrific. You can imagine the level of stress I’m under. However. Last month I was walking around with my Italian friend when she briefly stopped, smiled, pointed to a store and, without considering the barrage of feelings it would unleash in me, said, “Oh, this is one of my favorite grocers in Barcelona, they have everything from back home.” At which point I took a deep breath and very calmly, casually even, said, “Well. Well. That’s interesting. Isn’t that interesting? Should we maybe, I don’t know, scrap our plans for the afternoon and walk in? Spend an extended collection of quiet minutes exploring their pasta offerings?”
My friend, maybe noticing the sudden flush coloring my cheeks and fearing for her safety, indulged me, and there it was, on the well-stocked, beautiful pasta wall, a sight for sore and hungry eyes, my one true love: the humble De Cecco buc. I bought a couple of packets, a jar of vegan pesto, and walked (galloped) home. Made myself a frankly grotesque amount of pesto bucatini, took approximately 37 photos of it, and texted the happy news to everyone I knew. This process has been repeated every Sunday afternoon for the last month. It has made me unspeakably happy.
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One of the many things, for what it’s worth, that set me apart from Dick Cheney (I’m alive and he’s not).
If you follow my little seasonal playlists, you may have suspected my recent hyperfixation … I can’t keep adding flamenco songs to fall ‘25.
It’s sold out at a bunch of places, including the link I’m about to share, but just so you can see the model, I guess, here it is, linked.
It’s A La Interperie, btw. I don’t know how easy it would be to find outside of a Spanish-speaking country, but the link is to the publisher’s page, which gives you a few different purchase options.
A while ago I jokingly said I’d do a whole newsletter ranking pasta shapes and now I’m like, wait … why would that be a joke? Anyway, look out for that bit of investigative journalism soon.
Fully snorted coffee out my nose re: footnote 1
Loving the notion of “Hmm HQ” - conveniently located at the intersection of Sitting and Art.